The Elementary Persuasive Letter: Two Cases Of Situated Competence, Strategy, And Agency

Research on persuasive writing by elementary children posits primarily a developmental perspective, claiming that elementary-age children can effectively argue through talk but not through writing. While this view is commonly held, this article presents counterevidence. Drawing on two cases of third and fourth grade children writing persuasive letters gathered during six-month naturalistic studies of literacy practices and social identities in contrastive communities (one urban, one suburban), these data challenge the developmental generalization by showing that children in these settings can write persuasively. Further, this work complicates understandings of children\u27s persuasive writing by showing how assignments and local cultures shape children\u27s writing. Evidence is developed through rich description of the case study settings and instructional tasks, a typology of the children\u27s persuasive strategies, and a critical discourse analysis of the children\u27s persuasive letters. This study suggests that children in both communities are capable of persuasive writing, although they enact different patterns of response, drawing on locally learned discourses. The settings, the hybridity of the persuasive letter as both argument and letter, and the children\u27s habitus may account for some of the differences in how the children address the tasks through ranges of centeredness and agentive strategies. Differing patterns of response suggest new frames for viewing and fostering children\u27s argumentative competence in a range of settings, including understandings of agency. The author encourages a research agenda that accounts for socially situated classroom and community practices, and argues for ongoing research and critique of the power and place of persuasive writing for children in a range of schools

Casting And Recasting Gender: Children Constituting Social Identities Through Literacy Practices

Considers how gender, identity and literacy are entangled and mutually constitutive. Concludes that social experience, desire, proximate others, and the ways in which children can draw upon these in the classroom are aspects of the situated condition that deserve more prominence in literacy and identity research

Students And Service Staff Learning And Researching Together On A College Campus

Describes the preliminary study of a service learning program at Swarthmore College that paired students and college service staff in learning partnerships and as researchers of the program. Three primary questions were answered: How does service within a college campus count as service learning? How was the program community-shaping as well as personally enriching for students and staff? What place does participatory research have in service learning projects

Kittens! Inspired by Kittens! Undergraduate Theorists Inspired by YouTube

A professor and students in an undergraduate honors research seminar were inspired to playfully link old and contemporary literacy theories to a 2.0 media artifact, the popular YouTube video Kittens! Inspired by Kittens! (KIbK) starring 6 year-old Maddie. In this article KIbK is theorized drawing on frames of school-based reading instruction, social identities, identity formation in communities of practice, Bakhtin’s theory of intertextuality, and Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction. The authors found that KIbK was a powerful touchstone and Vygotskian tool for their project of linking theory to practice. They found that pre-digital literacy theories designed for paper texts were appropriate and useful to understanding web-based media such as KIbK. This interpretive project also supported the seminar’s goal of learning to see and appreciate the value of literacy practices in places that were previously invisible, such as on YouTube and in children and adults everyday creative human endeavors. Participants also found KIbK to be a powerful medium for constituting the seminar as a community of practice

Casting gender: The constitution of social identities through literacy practices among third and fourth graders

Elementary-aged children develop social identities (such as gender) and literacy simultaneously, yet little literature exists which examines the overlap of social identities and literacy. This study looked across the talk and writing, and social and academic worlds, of third and fourth graders to ascertain how literacy practices were used to constitute gendered social identities. Data was gathered on 45 children using ethnographic methods over a six-month period in two multi-age grade three/four classrooms. Collected data included: teacher-assigned writing; student-initiated writing; fieldnotes; audiotapes and transcripts of literature and writing discussions; and audiotapes of interviews of children discussing their writing and transcripts. Systematic data analysis included interactional sociolinguistic analysis, literary theories, reader response theories, and theories of gender. Children were found to cast gender: (1) by naming and renaming characters, selves, and peers, (2) intertextually, through genre structures, metaphors, anthropomorphism, and personification, (3) through bodycasts such as clothing, voice, hair and other physical characteristics, and (4) through interactions, especially verbal interactions. Literacy and gender casting practices were highly situated. Children were found to take and assign gender positions, which included border straddling across gender boundaries. Methodology was developed for using an interview technique, the redux interview, with children as they read and discussed their transcripts and writing. Conclusions included support for understanding literacy as continuous rather than dichotomous across talk and text, as well as a continuous view of social, personal, and academic learning. Intertextual references, genres, and literacy strategies were found to be implicated in the constitution of gender identities. Implications for pedagogy include attention to: the continuities of children\u27s social and academic worlds; children\u27s naming practices; dichotomous conceptual structures, genres, and literary strategies; student\u27s verbal interactions; and social resources for challenging gender categories and enhancing literacy practices

Casting gender: The constitution of social identities through literacy practices among third and fourth graders

Elementary-aged children develop social identities (such as gender) and literacy simultaneously, yet little literature exists which examines the overlap of social identities and literacy. This study looked across the talk and writing, and social and academic worlds, of third and fourth graders to ascertain how literacy practices were used to constitute gendered social identities. Data was gathered on 45 children using ethnographic methods over a six-month period in two multi-age grade three/four classrooms. Collected data included: teacher-assigned writing; student-initiated writing; fieldnotes; audiotapes and transcripts of literature and writing discussions; and audiotapes of interviews of children discussing their writing and transcripts. Systematic data analysis included interactional sociolinguistic analysis, literary theories, reader response theories, and theories of gender. Children were found to cast gender: (1) by naming and renaming characters, selves, and peers, (2) intertextually, through genre structures, metaphors, anthropomorphism, and personification, (3) through bodycasts such as clothing, voice, hair and other physical characteristics, and (4) through interactions, especially verbal interactions. Literacy and gender casting practices were highly situated. Children were found to take and assign gender positions, which included border straddling across gender boundaries. Methodology was developed for using an interview technique, the redux interview, with children as they read and discussed their transcripts and writing. Conclusions included support for understanding literacy as continuous rather than dichotomous across talk and text, as well as a continuous view of social, personal, and academic learning. Intertextual references, genres, and literacy strategies were found to be implicated in the constitution of gender identities. Implications for pedagogy include attention to: the continuities of children\u27s social and academic worlds; children\u27s naming practices; dichotomous conceptual structures, genres, and literary strategies; student\u27s verbal interactions; and social resources for challenging gender categories and enhancing literacy practices